Voice Q&A: Evil Narrators and Guy Talk

I’ve struggled with a post for today like you wouldn’t believe. I analyzed my writing using Juliet’s fantastic list of Voice attributes, and even started a post. Then I decided it was obnoxious of me to use my own writing to try to showcase something like this and ditched it all. Finally, I asked my friends in the Twitter community if they had any questions about Voice that they’d like tackled, and I had three responses. My thanks to them! Here goes:

Comment 1:I’m reading for a literary agent, and I keep getting manuscripts where the narrators are evil. They lie, they cheat, they steal, and they own up to those flaws up front, which makes them unreliable. I always stop reading these. Is it ever okay for the narrator to behave this way–where the antagonist is the protagonist? It seems like a trend, but I don’t know how and if it can work. Your thoughts?

I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel in which the narrator was purely evil. It seems that even if the main character, the protagonist, is a “bad guy,” (possible, yes) there should be something about him or her that the reader can identify with, otherwise the story’s impact could be lessened. It might work, too, if the character evolves throughout the course of the novel–becomes less of a liar, a cheat, a robber, has some major revelation about life and makes a change.

I can think of one highly successful novel in which the narrator owned up to being a liar right up front, though: Brunonia Barry’s The Lace Reader.

Chapter One

My name is Towner Whitney. No, that’s not exactly true. My real first name is Sophya. Never believe me. I lie all the time.

I am a crazy woman. …That last part is true.

It definitely worked! Towner’s unreliable nature kept readers guessing throughout the book, and there was a twisty and rewarding payoff in the end.

I also remember a movie in which the main character was purely evil: Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer. But the thing is, Henry wasn’t always horrid. He was once a little boy, whom we met through flashbacks–an innocent, who was introduced to a dark world by his mother. I had a slim hope for Henry throughout the story that he would somehow regain that lost innocence. In the end, though, he was true to character, killing someone I’d hoped might help him. But it made for authentic storytelling.

It’s ironic that I’m tackling this one. Was it really way back in 2007 when I blogged about the Gender Genie program? Uh, yes, it was. I had to create dialogue for several male characters for The Last Will of Moira Leahy, and one dude gave me a lot of trouble: My beta Englishman sounded more like a girl than a guy, according to my critique buddies. (Read about his makeover via the link.)

Things to try:

* Listen. If you’re a woman struggling with male dialogue, spend some time listening to men speak. (And if you’re a man struggling with fem dialogue, be all ears around women.) Make sure their ages are in line with those of your characters. Write down some of their sentences, then play with that dialogue as an actor might. Feel yourself slipping into character a little? Use that momentum; carry it into your story.* Speak. Read your dialogue aloud or–better–ask your favorite guy person to read it. How does it sound coming out of his mouth? If it’s awkward, as him how he’d say the same thing.* Create dialogue fingerprints. What makes your character uniquely Him or Her? How can you carry those traits over to dialogue? Some ideas: The angry guy talks in short sentences. The long-winded teenager uses big, flowery words. The young boy is shy, barely speaks at all, but always says something worth hearing. The grandmother is matter of fact in action and word.* Go Genie! If you’re still struggling to capture the essence of the opposite sex, try the Gender Genie. It was a fun experience for me, and in the end my dude actually sounded like a dude. Phew.

Thoughts from the WU audience? Have you read a book in which the protag is purely evil? Did the story work for you? Did that character evolve? And what of creating voice for your characters? Do you have any tricks for making those voices distinctive–especially for characters of the opposite sex?

Thanks for answering my questions! I currently have two men who are the same age as my male MC reading my MS, and I’m eager to see what they have to say. I learned in my first novel to shorten the men’s lines — I’m a long-winded talker and have to remind myself that few men are the same way.

I can’t think of any purely evil MCs. If they are, the author has always balanced it with glimpses of an innocent childhood, like you said. .-= Melanie´s last blog ..I Have a New Gig =-.

The gender issue was just what I needed to see today. I have one short story in particular where I received this overwhelming comment from readers: “He’s too feminine.” Ugh. It is currently under revision. I’ll scrutinize the dialogue more closely now, and see if that helps. Thanks for the tips! .-= Lydia Sharp´s last blog ..Unheard Voices In Spec Fic: Kaycee Looney =-.

I did think of a book I couldn’t put down with an evil narrator–Wildacre by Philippa Gregory. But I think that was because it was like a car accident–I didn’t want to look, but I couldn’t help it. .-= Erika Robuck´s last blog ..Interview: Singer/Songwriters, Carbon Leaf =-.

I read over the generator thing, and I didn’t quite get it… “and” is a feminine word? Like, really? Do men never use a sentence with more than one noun? I had no idea.

Shortening sounds like a dangerous directive… you’re trying to write men, not mongoloids. I’ve been male my whole life, and I never blubber out two word sentences like “Pretty girl.” I mean, if you’re writing Tarzan, maybe… but most men don’t talk like that.

Good rule of thumb, many men don’t talk too much about emotion, and if they do, it is often by incorporating real-life situations so they don’t really have to open up. Men are decidedly protective around other men. On the other side of the coin, men will spill out everything to the women of their lives. I find this to be quite the opposite with females (maybe it’s just the ones I’ve dated) but they will usually not open up to men for a long time, but will divulge anything to their girlfriends. Yay or nay with this?

But in short, I don’t think men are as easy to understand as shortening sentences and taking out adjectives… that’s kind of insulting. .-= Ken´s last blog ..Self-Congratulatorialism =-.

Furthermore, I think it is a lot about social and economic status of the men in question. If you are writing a man who works at an auto-repair shop, he wouldn’t talk the same as a Harvard-educated lawyer in New York.

The best answer I’ve ever heard to the question of “how to write good characters of the other gender” is to simply imagine them as people. That was Neil Gaiman. Create an entire personality for the character before writing him or her… that will make the dialogue ring true. Don’t stop just at “penis.” .-= Ken´s last blog ..Self-Congratulatorialism =-.

Ken–I like your male perspective and rule of thumb…I think you’re dead-on when it comes to emotional sharing/over-sharing between the genders.

My biggest problem with voice: my characters are all teenagers, and even when I was a teenager, which was long enough ago to make me wince, I didn’t talk like a teenager…Now I’m struggling to not make my teenage boys talk like 30-something women… I think I’ll be lurking around teenager hang-outs very soon…if I can find them. :) .-= Jennifer Bailey´s last blog ..Are my Drakon Doomed? (#2) =-.

Dark, unreliable narrators have been around for a quite awhile. The Tunnel by Ernesto Sabato (1948) comes to mind, as do The Stranger (1942) and The Fall (1956) by Albert Camus. Done properly, this type of narrator can be profoundly moving or deliberately disturbing. The Collector (1963) by John Fowles is told in part from the viewpoint of a man who has kidnapped a young woman and is keeping her prisoner in his cellar. Even though there is no real violence in the story (no rape, no murder) that book still gives me chills. No blood-and-guts story can even come close to scaring me like The Collector did.

As for character voices, it’s critical to listen to how a variety of real people talk in daily life. Getting the dialogue correct is as much about beats and word choice as sentence length and structure. I don’t recommend thinking of “guy talk” and “girl talk” though. People are individuals, not categories. A long-haul trucker, whether male or female, will have a different vocabulary and manner of speaking than a mathematician or a poet. Where the character grew up, their social class (real or aspirational), age and education all factor into the equation as well.

You can get away with stereotypical guy and girl talk for your walk-on characters, but your MCs and Secondaries should have their own way of speaking that’s unique to them. Get the voice right for the character, and the male/female issue will usually care of itself.

Hi Therese :) Thank you for the great craft post. I read it out loud and if the voice doesn’t “ring true” I change it until it does. Mark Twain is my hero for character voice. :) .-= RKCharron´s last blog ..Release Day Tuesday =-.

Ken, I understand why it seems somewhat insulting, but it’s not meant to be that way. I didn’t go back to read through the Gender Genie site when writing this post, but I recall that it was based on some form of scientific analysis of literature. I also recall that there weren’t black-and-white rules. Yes, women tended to use certain words–like “and” and “should”–more often than men, while men tended to choose others. But these were only trends, and as Ann rightly pointed out, people aren’t categories–they’re people. Not all male characters should sound alike and neither should all female characters. Still, if a writer is struggling with these issues, as many are, it’s nice to know there might be a trick or two out there.

Ann, it’s been over a decade since I’ve read The Stranger and I’ve forgotten much of the plot. Now I’ll have to re-read!

My favorite ‘bad’ narrator is Humbert Humbert of Lolita. He is horrible, but self deluded enough that he doesn’t know it, so it works. The reader doesn’t exactly ‘fall for it’, but we get it. Plus at the end, he begins to get some inkling of how he ‘ruined’ Lola.

As for guys… I’ve written teens and that voice is pretty easy for me (having some), but the adult males are a little different–so far they’ve been either academic (like me-so there is some common ground) or foreign (I intend to have a beta reader on those anyway).

My favourite bad–and unreliable– narrator is Doctor Sheppard in Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd–a fantastic deception to pull off–and I believe Christie was one of the first to do it that way. Apparently she got a huge amount of flak over it by critics who said you just couldn’t do that sort of thing. But the readers loved it(and still do!)

I loved The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, but I think the narrator in Endless Night, also by Agatha Christie, is closer to real evil but still to be pitied. Can anyone comment on him? I did think he worked, and couldn’t put the book down, but it’s years since I read it.

Great post Therese. You’ve hit all the key points, especially listening to actual people talk. It’s not enough to just go for “what sounds like a guy” (as in this example) but what sounds like the specific character an author is writing. Assumptions that all guys talk in shorter sentences or smaller words (which I see often) just don’t cut it.

While I don’t want to come across as self-promoting, you did ask about techniques for writing the opposite gender, and I actually *just* put up a discussion yesterday about this which has had some great responses. The big thing I’d stress is to write characters, not genders, because gender is a cultural thing, not a biological thing. How a character acts and talks is influenced by culture, among tons of other things, so getting to know a character (such as figuring out their dialogue ‘fingerprints’ as you mentioned) is going to help a lot more, in my opinion, than approaching the problem in terms of ‘How do guys talk?’ .-= Hayley E. Lavik´s last blog ..Gendered Narrative: A Cultural Perspective =-.

This doesn’t help anyone writing contemporary literature, but the author I feel captures dialogue fingerprints best – fantastic term, btw – would be Georgette Heyer. The woman wrote pages of dialogue with three or more characters, often with little in the way of tags or narrative to orient the reader; yet it’s still very clear who’s speaking.

As for myself, I have to read dialogue aloud for any character to see if it rings true. It helps to have an avatar for a character, too.

Sheena, I think that you’re right, the young man in Endless Night is totally evil–and yet yes you can pity him–while recoiling from him–he’s not quite sane. It’s a very chilling book, quite haunting.. Dr Sheppard though is both sane and evil–a more ordinary kind of evil than in Endless Night, but still out for what he can get and apparently without remorse. And then of course there’s the hidden narrator of And then there were None–an amazing conjuring trick.